Stories to soak up and a guide to greasing the innovation cogs

What’s colourful, 104 pages long and bursting with awe-inspiring words? It’s pretty obvious, actually: that’d be Idealog #33, our brand spankin’ new issue currently gracing newsstands. For those who haven’t yet laid eyes on a copy, here’s a taster of what’s in store: for starters, part one of our Guide to Innovation is ready to transform New Zealand into an innovating machine, and we’ve got plenty of examples of bright sparks pushing the boundaries in everything from bach design to surfboard manufacturing.  Special mention goes to the ambitious minds behind Mt Cook Alpine Salmon (which at first glance combines entirely the wrong place, wrong product and wrong people) and the woman who shunned all the rules of traditional publishing to create the hybrid “mook”. 

And because there’s no better way to learn than from someone who’s actually been there and done that, we also had a chat to entrepreneur/investor Rowan Simpson, who’s learned a few things about getting paying customers and learning from mistakes on both sides of the table. Make no mistake, they’re stories to savour, ponder, and refer back to down the line.

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TV on the WWW

After a bit of a hiatus, Idealog TV is back with a bang: we tagged along for Auckland’s first StartUp weekend, which threw together a crowd of entrepreneurial individuals to build a product or company from the ground up in 54 hours; and asked Sir Owen Glenn what he thought about New Zealand’s prospects for business and innovation at the recent Icehouse 10-Year Anniversary Event.

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A better way to start the day

Breakfast doesn’t have to be a dull affair, wolfed down in a rush to get out the door. Early morning laughs are guaranteed, in fact, at Fairtrade’s upcoming brekky with Kiwi comedy stars Michele A’Court and Jeremy Elwood on May 12. Join the pair from TV3’s 7 Days in Auckland’s inner city secret garden, the Britomart Country Club, for a host of fun activities as well as munchies from Caffe L’affare, Kokako and All Good. Tickets are $15, including food, all the coffee/tea/hot chocolate you can consume, plus a copy of Idealog stablemate Good magazine and a Keepcup. You’ll also hear firsthand how Fairtrade has affected a Sri Lankan tea-growing community, and mix with other like-minded people. Tickets can be booked here.

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Antagonised avians

Angry Birds has become something of a phenomenon, and odds are Hollywood will try to cash in on it at some point. Here’s what a trailer for the movie might look like. (If you don’t know what Angry Birds is, where have you been?)

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Plan to succeed

Got a great business idea or a startup with plenty of potential? This week, the inaugural ANZ Flying Start Business Plan competition was launched, offering a prize package of $60,000, as well as $3,000 regional prizes. It’s open to all businesses with less than $1 million annual turnover,  including owners with a concept who have not yet started trading. Entries close on June 3.

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Say it with film

The decision to cut funding to TVNZ 7 wasn’t welcomed by all, so if you were one of those opposed then get writing, shooting (even if it’s on your smartphone) and editing. Lobby group Save TVNZ 7 is calling for short, attention-grabbing videos conveying the message that the public service channel is cherished and should be kept around. The winning clip will be screened on Media 7 and all entries will be posted online. More info on submissions (which close in a week) are here.

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Gif as good as you get

Does the term “animated GIF” strike fear into your heart, recalling visions of flashing fluorescent monstrosities? These subtle cinemagraphs will soothe those memories, forcing a total rethink of the phrase. Photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg say they’re “something more than a photo but less than a video”, bordering, dare we say, on real art.

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Splinter sprinter

We’re not sure what’s more remarkable: the fact that this bike is constructed entirely from wood (not a piece of metal, rubber or plastic are to be found on it) or the fact that its makers are confident it will set a new speed record despite never having ridden it. The British duo, Michael Thompson and James Tully, say they were inspired to build the SplinterBike after Tully bet Thompson he couldn’t pull it off. They’ve called in the Speed Record Club at a great expense to see if their theory is right; now all they need is a sponsor to help pay the £7,500.

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More than the eye can see

Those Hubble telescope panoramas we see aren’t just simple photos. In fact, they’re digital composites created over hours of painstaking Photoshop work to convert the raw data into a form we can see. Here’s how they do it.

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Quote of the week

“New Zealand’s basically broke, if you look at the balance sheet, and we’re borrowing too much. We’ll end up just paying the interest on loans as long as people keep lending to us, unless we fix it.”

–Sir Owen Glenn at the Icehouse 10-Year Anniversary Event as seen on Idealog TV